Rust and Necrosis
by Belladonna Lee
Summary: Harry/Sirius. Warning for self-harm. At the age of fifteen, Harry has gone a little mad.


Disclaimer: The world of Harry Potter and its characters are not mine.

Warnings: Self-harm. Depression. Harry is fifteen in this chapter; there is a kiss.

A/N: Happy Hallowe'en. This is an experiment on a what-if scenario.

 **Rust and Necrosis**

 _At the age of fifteen, he's gone a little mad._

Somewhere in Little Whinging, a scream pierced through the fabric of reality. Jolted out of his trance, Harry felt his wand hand twitch, but he did not move from the bed. Instead, he turned his gaze towards the open window and listened. The shrill voice belonged to a child, and the shriek was not of fear but of delight. Another gleeful scream joined in, followed by a loud splash and raucous laughter.

No longer paying attention to the noise, Harry sat up on the bed, his mind as blank as the walls around him. In the smallest bedroom of number four, Privet Drive, there was no wind, no fan and little relief from the hot, humid day. After wiping away the sweat on his upper lip, he grabbed the water bottle from the nightstand and took a gulp. The water was lukewarm, but it was better than nothing.

Four walls and a closed door made up the bulk of his existence in the summer. He felt safe inside these walls, where no one would bother him, where no one would ask how he was feeling when he felt either nothing or too much. As grateful as he was to his friends and the Weasleys for their kindness and concern, he was more used to being ignored. Left to his own devices, he felt less guilty about being less than fine.

Without interest he swept his gaze across the room, a space he never truly made his. Most of his belongings were right here with him, but the only thing that mattered to him was the broken mirror on the bed. Lying upon a piece of torn black cloth, glass fragments reflected the white ceiling: a vision as cut-up as his sanity. When he picked up the largest shard and looked into its depth, he saw only himself.

Gripping the glass shard, he pressed the jagged edge against his wrist. His pulse racing, he sliced his skin open with more force than he thought was needed. Beads of blood began to form along the scarlet line he had drawn on his wrist. The sharp pain and the butterflies in his stomach soon gave way to a dull ache. As more blood trickled out of the wound, he thought about putting something over it, but he could not bring himself to move an inch. The sight of his bleeding wrist fascinated him in a detached kind of way.

He was not trying to kill himself; he merely wanted to know how it would feel to cut himself open. Beyond the initial thrill and the pain thereafter, however, he felt nothing more. After placing the mirror shard on the nightstand, he fell sideways onto the bed with a soft thud and closed his eyes. Aunt Petunia would be angry with him if he stained the sheet with blood, but he did not want to move from his position. Curled up on his side, he ignored the world around him and drifted off to sleep.

The sky had darkened by the time Harry stirred from his uneasy dreams of mirrors and veils. His throat parched and his mind sluggish, he felt feverish and empty. His T-shirt clung to his sticky skin; his brow too was damp with sweat. A groan escaped unbidden from his mouth, and he forced himself to open his eyes. It took him half a minute to realise there was something odd about the view. What was supposed to be a desk on the other side of the room was now obstructed by the silhouette of a certain someone.

In the dimness penetrated by the orange sodium streetlight outside the window, Sirius sat on the floor by the bed, his hand covering Harry's hand and his thumb stroking the wrist Harry had cut open earlier. "Feeling better?"

The chill of Sirius' hand was a comfort against his burning skin. It occurred to Harry that even though Sirius was touching the spot where he had injured himself, he felt neither pain nor irritation, only a slight itch where the pad of Sirius' thumb brushed against his skin.

"Yes. Better." Stretching his legs, Harry settled for a more comfortable position on the mattress and wrapped his fingers around Sirius' hand. "Why are you here?"

"You wanted to see me, didn't you?" There was a hint of a smile in Sirius' voice. With his free hand Sirius ruffled Harry's hair, an affectionate gesture that sent pleasant shivers down Harry's spine. "Next time you want to see me, just say my name. Offering your blood to the two-way mirror isn't the way to go by it."

Knowing Sirius suspected the truth, Harry nonetheless kept up his act and indulged his godfather with a chuckle or two. What he had done was merely on the spur of the moment, but he did not want to say it lest Sirius start worrying about his sanity. At the thought, he felt a pressure in his chest, and his grip on Sirius' hand tightened. "Did anything happen lately?"

"Nothing happened," came the dismissive reply. The mattress sank ever so slightly as Sirius rested his elbow on the bed, his gaze intent on Harry. "I feel better now that I've seen you in person."

"Me too." Harry paused. "Can you stay a little longer?"

 _Of course not._ Harry scolded himself for sounding like a spoiled child. The Aurors were still looking for Sirius, who had yet to prove his innocence in the eyes of the Ministry. In fact, Sirius should not have come here, regardless of how much his presence put Harry's mind at ease.

"Sorry, I shouldn't have— I mean you are still— It's not s—"

"I'll stay overnight," Sirius interjected whatever pathetic argument Harry had meant to say, his hand squeezing Harry's in reassurance. "I'd have to leave before sunrise, but until then, I'm all yours."

Like a spell those last three words unlocked something inside Harry. His heartbeat quickened, he slipped his hand out of Sirius' grasp and propped himself up on his elbow. The earthy scent that was uniquely Sirius' was tempting him. All he had to do was lean forward, and he would have gotten his wish.

"Sirius?" There was no reply, but Harry knew Sirius was listening. "Can we kiss?"

The world had gone still. In the midst of frozen shadows, Sirius did not so much as twitch, as though his time too had become frozen. Silence lengthened until Sirius let out a breath, and when he spoke, his voice was raspy with raw emotion. "Yes."

A hand reached out and held the back of Harry's head, drawing him close; fingers buried in his hair as if meaning to massage his scalp; rough lips caught his mouth in a consuming kiss. It was unlike the clumsy, lukewarm, unfulfilling kiss he had with Cho. Sirius was all things seasoned and sensual and fierce: he was everything Harry could have asked for and wanted. Perhaps it was wrong of him to be infatuated with his godfather, but he could not bring himself to care.

When Harry woke up for the second time, the twilight that preluded the arrival of dawn had dyed his room a dusty blue, as if the world had been submerged while he slept. A touch of chill crept through the open window and chased away last night's heat. He was lying under his thin blanket, but he had no memory of covering himself with it. When he fumbled around for his glasses, he found them at the usual place by the pillow.

Silence dominated the room and beyond, as though he were the only one left in the world. After putting on his glasses, he tossed the blanket aside and sat up. There was no sign of Sirius anywhere in his refuge of a bedroom. He was alone, and his wrist, now caked with coagulated blood, was hurting again.

* * *

 _To be continued..._


End file.
